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Notes From A Windy City

Evening rush hour in downtown Chicago. It’s cold but dry. I’ve just arrived on the California Zephyr from San Francisco. Now I’m riding the metro’s red line northbound from Washington to Sheridan. Underground at first, then breaking the surface and rising above the streets. North / Clyborn, Fullerton, Belmont. I’m strap-hanging, one hand on my bag, counting off the stops. At Addison, there’s a baseball park right next to the station. Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. The next stop’s mine and I head off to find the apartment.

In the Cathedral

At the apartment, my next surprise. John, my host, is a big baseball fan; his team is the St.Louis Cardinals. He’s also an improv comedian playing at The Second City club on North Wells.

John knows that the Cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908 but doesn’t know much about squash. He also knows where the University Club of Chicago is; the venue of the Windy City Open. It’s downtown on East Monroe; I can walk there from Monroe station on the red line. During the Open, the show court is set up in the stained-glass splendour of the UCC’s Cathedral Hall, the last word in opulence.

First, though, I decide to check out Chicago’s baseball scene.

At Cellular Field

The Cubs aren’t playing at Wrigley during my stay but the White Sox are playing at lunch-time on Friday at U.S.Cellular Field on the South Side. I travel down to the murder capital of Chicago on the red line. It’s sunny and warm. At Sox / 35th station, there’s a holiday atmosphere and a heavy police presence. But no gun-fire or burning cars – at least en route to the ballpark.

The Sox are playing the Cleveland Indians in a match which gradually grabs my attention, partly due to a recent crash course in the rules of baseball given by a friend in San Francisco. The Indians prevail by 3 to 1 and I join the crowds heading back to the red line.

At The Second City

The Second City

Another sunny, warm afternoon. I take in a Second City matinee with John in the cast. It’s a ‘best of’ show featuring the most popular sketches from recent productions. John shines. There are improvised sketches too, around subjects suggested by members of the audience. The relative lack of success of the Cubs is one subject, Mayor Daly (Chicago’s notorious former mayor) another, and gang-crime a third. I’m guessing that squash won’t ever be one. I chat with the regulars and discover that The Second City is the first ever on-going improvisational theatre troupe in the United States. Former members include comedians Jim Belushi, Tina Fey, Mike Myers, Dan Akroyd and Peter Boyle. John seems to be in good company.

In Union Station

A rainy day and I’m coming to the end of my visit. I’m downtown in the bowels of the majestic Union Station looking for the Amtrak lost property department. Three days after I arrived in the city, I’m hoping that some documents I left at the Amtrak office in San Francisco have turned up. As these include my passport and air ticket home, I’m keen to get hold of them. But the signage isn’t the best I’ve ever seen; plenty of instructions about what not to do but none about where to go.

Union Station, Chicago

Eventually, I reach a tiny office manned by two older guys in Amtrak uniforms. They listen to my request in the manner of anthropologists observing a member of a primitive tribe. They seem to understand my non-US accent. One of them beckons me to follow him further into the gloom of his subterranean domain. We reach a store room. He rummages around on a shelf and retrieves a cardboard box which is large enough to contain a bedside table. My name is on a label taped to the top of the box. Inside, we find a mountain of paper packaging and, buried beneath them, my documents. I sign a receipt, thank him and head for what I hope is the exit. After I’ve gone a few yards, he calls out.

“Hey! Give my regards to Doctor Who.”

I turn and smile. Outside, for the first time during my visit, it’s windy.

Sources

Thanks to Wikipedia for their entries on The Second City, The Chicago Cubs, The California Zephyr, The Chicago White Sox, University Club of Chicago and Chicago Union Station.